The Anatomy of Love
by Gear42
Summary: Artemis comes to the circus looking for a way to feed herself. She ends up with so much more. CircusAU


_Written for the Young Justice Valentines Exchange_

A grin, displaying neat white teeth to the world at large.

"You look a little lost. Are you new here?"

"Uh, yeah. I was hired as a marksperson after your last one quit. I'm Artemis." The words are sharp, defending their wielder's right to be here.

The grin widens and dimples deepen. "Wally's gonna _hate _you." Said with amused relish.

The combination of smile and words and tone is startling enough to slip past Artemis' shields, and she frowns. "What do you mean?"

"He's Roy's – the man you're replacing – '_special friend_._'_" Artemis thinks that she can almost see the quotation marks around the woman's words._"_So he's not exactly peachy about him leaving. Don't worry, though – he won't do anything serious. I'll show you to your trailer. I'm Zatanna, by the way."

"Thank you?" She's still off balance and Zatanna's words have done nothing to help her regain her footing.

"No problem. Do you have anything else?" A thin, delicate, strong hand gestures in the direction of the bag slung over Artemis' shoulder.

Artemis feels her hackles rise, and a heated blush starts somewhere in the vicinity of her chest, making its slow, shameful way to her face. "No. This is it." This and the bow held tightly in her hand and a depressingly paltry amount of money in the bank are her sole possessions.

"That's not a problem – we've had people come here with just the clothes on their backs, so you're better off than some. Remind me to tell you how we found Conner sometime – he was definitely the worst. Anyway, come on. After you get settled you need to go to Megan – I'll point her place out when we pass it – so she can measure you for your costume. You already talked to Kaldur, so that isn't a problem. I'll find you around six for dinner and you can meet everyone else." Zatanna's enthusiasm is almost exuberant enough to make Artemis smile. Almost.

When she grabs the archer's hand and begins to pull her towards the field, Artemis feels, entirely against her will, a smirk begin to creep across her face.

It's the morning before her first performance. Artemis, having woken up in a cold sweat the night before, is drinking coffee like there's no tomorrow and exuding an aura of "fuck off." Even Wally, normally willing to face her most tempestuous moods for an opportunity to engage in their vitriolic banter (which, recently, has been edging towards sibling-like friendship) is steering well clear.

None of this deters Zatanna, who sits down across from the woman and pushes a plate piled high with food toward her. "You have to eat – we could never overcome the shame of our archer collapsing during her debut show."

If possible, the scowl deepens, and Artemis protests vehemently that she would never do something so _stupid _as to pass out, but she also begins to eat the eggs, so Zatanna decides to count that as a win.

When she finishes eating (or, at least, when she claims that if she eats anymore, she'll throw up) Zatanna asks if she wants to practice her routine. Glad for something (anything) to do, Artemis agrees.

A short detour to grab Artemis' bow, arm guard and quiver before they head to the empty parking lot that Artemis had co-opted as her impromptu archery range. Artemis isn't sure why Zatanna is still here (after all, she has an act to work on too) but she doesn't mind the company, and she has to get used to people watching her anyway (Dick, the trapeze artist that Artemis had become fast friends with, would have given another reason for why she didn't mind the stage magician's presence). Quickly, she falls into her routine, firing rapidly at the variety of targets until her quiver is empty. When she does the actual performance, she'll have another quiver on the ground next to her, and she'll change it for the finished one while the crowd applauds (she allows herself a second to panic about what she'll do if they _don't _clap before she banishes the thought from her mind), but now she has to go collect her arrows for the next trick. She's been working on five routines (one a double act with Dick – or the Flying Grayson as he calls himself onstage) but she'll only be performing two this afternoon. The second comes off without a hitch, and before she can go to retrieve the arrows again, she's stopped by a pair of surprisingly strong arms around her waist. "You'll be fantastic. Come on, you need to change into your costume."

Artemis nods mutely, and Zatanna steers her back toward the little town of trailers and tents that make up the migratory town of the circus.

The costume taunts her, lying innocently on her bed, pretending to be mere spandex and cotton and leather. But it's more than that. More than a mere covering, it's a reminder. A reminder that this is just as much an evaluation of her acting as it is one of her aim. A reminder that in a few hours' time, she'll be standing up in front of hundreds of people with all eyes on her. A reminder that in a few minutes she'll be standing in front of Zatanna wearing this skin tight halter top with its stylized green arrow and pants that leave nothing to the imagination (she ignores the fact that this last part scares her more than the other two combined. It simply isn't possible that the girl has managed to worm her way into her heart within only a few weeks of meeting. It isn't possible, and therefore, doesn't bear consideration). She sets her jaw and changes quickly, leaving no time for second thoughts. "You can come in," she calls, trying to look calm and confident instead of uncomfortable and slightly neurotic (she's always been a bad liar).

Her fears are put to rest when Zatanna walks in and looks at her, appreciation clear on her face (and they've been building up to this for weeks, ever since they met, but now isn't the time, it's _never _the time). "You look good. We have time for a quick lunch before we head down to the stadium."

"Right. Let's go then."

Later, Artemis will be told that she did well, and that the show went off without a hitch, but she can't vouch for anything herself because the entire performance is a blurred blank spot in her mind. She has a gaping hole in her memory between the moment she stepped on stage (helped along by a gentle push from the troupe's manager, a tall man named Kaldur) and when she flopped down in the offstage changing room next to Zatanna, shaking and boneless.

"I told you you'd be fine," Zatanna says.

"And I shall never again doubt your wisdom, oh great wise woman," retorts Artemis, pulling a laugh out of her.

They turn to face each other, and something in the atmosphere shifts from playful and silly to serious. Artemis isn't sure what makes her do it, (she suspects a combination of Dick's nagging and the high of the performance and the tension that has been steadily growing) but she puts a hand on Zatanna's cheek. "May I?" she hears herself ask, and Zatanna nods, the implicit question understood.

The kiss is slow and deep, neither particularly chaste nor lusty and passion filled.

It's an exploration.

It's messy and awkward without enough practice to anticipate each other's actions.

It's perfect.


End file.
